Priyanka Chopra’s Own Goal on Reddit – and how I cheered her on!

Okay, every once in a while something happens that restores your faith in humanity. On a friend’s Facebook timeline this morning, I saw a link to Priyanka Chopra’s disastrous ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit. If you haven’t seen links to this page before or if you haven’t read about it at other media outlets, you absolutely must go there right now and read at least the top fifty comments.

Me? I read the whole thing. I deeply distrust and dislike mainstream Bollywood – not just for the poor quality of work they do, but also for the massive social power they wield over impressionable minds in the country (not all of them children). So when I saw people asking questions that would have made Priyanka Chopra squirm in her seat, I whooped and cheered.

Just to give you a sample, here are a few that made me smile.

1. What has your father done to deserve having a road named after him?

Agentbigman, a reddit user, had this to say: ‘Recently a road was renamed in Andheri, Mumbai after your father. What was the reason that it was renamed? What contributions has your father made that a road was renamed after him and not after countless other people who strived and died for India? What made you decide to nominate him and not other people for such a thing? I as a citizen of this city would like to know from you since the whole deal of renaming a city road unnecessarily is sketchy and shady and reeks of corruption. Thank You.’

2. How important is ‘Auto-tune’ in your singing career?

Listen to this. Ever since auto-tuning entered the music industry, our stars have suddenly become multi-faceted. Now Shraddha Kapoor is going to sing, Salman Khan is going to sing, Siddharth Malhotra is going to sing. How the dead singers of old must be rolling in their graves.

Another Reddit member responded to this question thus: ‘How important is singing in your auto-tuning career?’ Ouch.

3. Why is it sub-human to be dark-skinned?

For those of you who don’t get the context here, watch this gem. Priyanka has been a long-time ambassador of whitening and beauty products. Indeed, she owes her fame and Bollywood career to the Miss World crown she won in 2000, as an eighteen-year-old. How can a person who has such deep, active roots in an industry that objectifies women today become a spokesperson for women’s equality?

4. Do you think beauty pageants are a bad influence on society?

Reddit user ‘sunnydelish’ linked to ‘The World Before Her‘ and asked if beauty pageants set unrealistic benchmarks for physical beauty and contribute to discontent and low self-esteem among women. The answer is yes, of course, and I’m sure Priyanka Chopra knows it. But why admit it and jeopardize those big fat checks coming her way every month from the likes of Pond’s?

Neither she nor her PR team answered any of the above questions. At least if she hadn’t answered any questions on the list, we could have given her the benefit of the doubt and said her laptop crashed or something. But she did answer a few. When asked if she liked Hyderabadi Biryani, she said, ‘Loooooooove it.’

When asked for her views on homosexuality, this was her answer: ‘I believe that people should be free to live the way they want to. Love is love and is not defined by whether you are homosexual or heterosexual! Very simply, I believe in the adage “to each his / her own”. I firmly believe that everyone is entitled to their own sexual preferences.’

To which a person replied: ‘Love is love. Wow.’ Another said, ‘She knows her tautologies.’ She does indeed.

And she ended with this

‘This has been interesting,’ she said while signing off. ‘Thank you guys for your time. I’m sorry I could not get to everyone’s questions but I hope you enjoyed this as well.’

Well. Yes, Priyanka. We did rather enjoy this. Thank you for the entertainment.

Comments

Hahahaha… When I first saw Priyanka Chopra’s name on the AMA list, my knee-jerk reaction was ‘This is the end of the world’. However, I knew that 50% of AMAs are for promotional purposes. What I didn’t remember was that this was Reddit. Although I didn’t join in at that time, during the website’s Meetup (Incidentally, the same place I took you for lunch 😊) I was told that she didn’t last 15 minutes. Someone needs to change her PR team. Just because it’s ‘cool’ to conduct an AMA , doesn’t mean she’ll find her crazy supporting audience in a place that is a product of 4chan. She should stick to Twitter.
Nice post Sharath!

I read the whole thing, from top to bottom. Some would say I wasted an entire morning, but it was so much fun! I had to re-blog about it. If you feel bored sometime during the next few days, this is the link to go to. Trust me.

On another note, you must be gutted about Nadal. (Old news, I know. We must catch up!)

Hypocritical, not so much. See no matter who it was there needs to be a line that shouldn’t be crossed. No matter who, if it is thrown out to the audience to ask they will ask only crass. Especially since this is the only chance they might get to do it. Being a celebrity, more than half their lives are carefully hidden from the outside media. Nobody wants anyone to encroach there. I am not a celebrity, yet I would never be a part of something like an AMA. It only invites trouble.

That’s true. I take your point that an AMA, for most people, can only spell trouble.

But many of the questions that were asked ARE relevant. The question about the road, the auto-tuning, and the ‘fairness creams’ are all important, serious issues. These are not just questions that aim to troll. If a person stands up for women’s rights and at the same time endorses beauty and skin whitening products, that is hypocritical. No? And similarly with calling herself an ‘artist’ when the main contribution she makes to music videos (and movies, these days) is to be ‘an item’. And less said about the road named after her father, the better. To be blunt, I wonder how many people had to be bribed for THAT to happen.

That is why I called her hypocritical. Nothing wrong with being that way, of course. But as you said, she should have stuck to PR-controlled interviews given that her life is so spotty.

Lots of famous people (even the one’s who’ve been surrounded by scandals) have participated in AMAs. If they decide to be brave enough to put themselves on Reddit, then they should be brave enough to answer difficult questions as well. 😊

Thank you for the great laugh first thing in the morning….but no thank you for that link because I might spend the rest of the morning reading it (I don’t think her PR team realized how reddit works and that an unanswered question could end up at the top – the comments on the one about the road are pretty awesome)